Day 4: “A good, hard skate” for the Sharks, Havlat’s move to the fourth line and lots in-between

It was more instructional than usual, with Todd McLellan barking at players who weren’t in the right place at the right time. It was longer than usual, at least an hour on the ice. And it featured a drill that seemed to both force players to bear down on their shots and work players a little closer to the edge than they sometimes get.

Every player took a breakaway shot. If he didn’t score, the rest of the team did a quick sprint from the red line to the two deep faceoff dots in one zone and back; if he did score, nobody had to skate.

Few scored – Ryane Clowe was one of them — and there was a lot of skating. This gets a quick mention in the print edition story tomorrow that focuses more on the fact the Sharks must now try to end their losing streak against the Chicago Blackhawks team that is yet to lose in regulation. But I’ll repeat McLellan’s quote here anyway:

“We needed a good, hard skate today and we got that in. It gives us a chance to look at the whole team in a shootout situation with them not even knowing it. It gives the goalies a lot of work – a lot of purpose to the drill, a lot of hidden purpose, too.”

Both the Blackhawks and Sharks moved their practices from Johnny’s Ice House to the United Center when – get ready for it – Lady Gaga canceled her concert here today. Teams always prefer to practice where they’ll play, so that was a win-win for both.

*****While most of the print edition story is filled with San Jose thoughts on the upside of playing the red-hot Blackhawks right now, those on the Chicago side did their best to portray the Sharks as a still-worthy foe despite their current funk.

“They’re a dangerous team in a lot of ways. I’ve got a lot of respect for their power play and they can get hot in that area real quick,” Coach Joel Quenneville said. “They’ve got a lot of guys who know how to score, they go to the net, they put pucks to the net and they make it a challenge.

“Some offensive stretches over a season, sometimes the pucks don’t go in for you,” he added, “but they have a tendency — by doing the right things, eventually they get rewarded.”

Here’s what Patrick Kane had to say:

“I don’t know how many they’ve lost in a row, but I know they didn’t play too good in Columbus and got beat in Nashville the other night. I think they’re trying to get some offense going, so we’re going to have to play sound defensively because they have some big players over there that can turn it up.

“Any time you play them it’s been kind of a rivalry that’s developed over the past few years since that playoff series that we played in 2010. It’s a good team. You’ve got to be careful of them for sure.”

Kane, by the way, also talked about good friend Adam Burish, now of the Sharks. Both teams had Wednesday off and the two got together.

“It was fun to see him and talk to him a little bit. You know what? He’s pretty soft. He only chirps to the media,” Kane said. “He chirps to you guys so he gets that reputation in the papers or with the fans out there. Deep down he’s a nice guy.”

(Burish talked more about why the Sharks really weren’t in a bad position, facing Chicago at this point. Most of that is in the print edition story).

*****Lockouts can turn foes into friends. Chicago forward Patrick Kane, for example, got to know Joe Thornton when the two were teammates for Davos’s run at the Spengler Cup back in December

“I played with him like a week, 10 days,” Kane said. “Really good player, great guy, kind of like a big kid. Developed a pretty good friendship with him.

“I’ve got a lot of respect for him now just to see how he was off the ice and the way he plays the game. He just seems to love hockey. It’s kind of funny, the criticism he gets around the league for what’s happened in the past. . .He was guy I watched growing up so it was fun to play with him.”

Kane, who does have a reputation for partying a little too hard at times, also said he spent a couple evenings with Thornton, getting the Davos tour.

Thornton had good things to say about Kane, too, though he wouldn’t talk about Kane’s past reputation for partying.

“We got along real good,” Thornton said. “Just a real nice young man and a lot of fun to be around.”

*****McLellan indicated it was likely Tim Kennedy would be back on the second line with Logan Couture and Ryane Clowe.

“I thought it went well,” Kennedy said of his first NHL game as a Shark and 113th overall. “We’d like to score a little bit and if I could have scored on that 2-on-1 I had back in the first period, that would have been nice.”

Did the fact he was facing Pekka Rinne and not an AHL goalie have something to do with that?

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m not saying the goalies down there are bad but you’re not facing too many goalies with that kind of talent and just his size in general. I tried going through his legs because his pads cover the whole net. I don’t know what it hit . . . thought it was going through his legs and somehow he kept it out of the net.”

****Marty Havlat wasn’t disclosing too many of his thoughts about being moved to the fourth line against Nashville, even though he and Adam Burish and TJ Galiardi generated a lot of scoring chances.

“I’m just a player so I do whatever the coach tells me to do. I can’t control things,” he said. “Whatever line I’m on, I’m just trying to do my best and use whatever I’m good at, and I was successful all my career.”

Did he think a message was being sent? Ask the coach.

McLellan wasn’t too forthcoming either, sidestepping the question about why he moved Haflat to a line with Adam Burish and TJ Galiardi.

“Do you think they were our fourth line the other day? They didn’t play like it,” he said.

The only one talking much about the experience was Burish, who centered the line.

“I think you just had a nice mix of different players,” Burish said. “TJ who’s a speed player who can shoot the puck, who can find openings, who can create opening for himself. And then you’ve got Marty Havlat who’s probably one of the best playmakers in the game.

“I was just kind of thrown in the middle there,” he said. “I guess you’d have to ask those guys what I did.”

David Pollak

David Pollak has been following the NHL forever and at the Mercury News as an editor or reporter since 1987. For almost a decade he wrote about the Sharks as the paper's Fan in the Stands before joining the sports department in 2001. He became the Sharks beat writer before the 2007-08 season and began this blog at that time. You can also follow him on Twitter at @PollakOnSharks.

Sheppard 233 games 11 goals
Coyle 6 games 0 goals.
I think it’s a little early to make dumb comments about Coyle like that. Scouts agree he’s a keeper. We’ll do this comparison again in a year or so.

Lisa

48 MLBSF1
Anaheim beat the Hawks in SO a few days ago. Hawks could not capitalize on a 4 minute PP in OT. Hawks showed feet of clay. Their winning streak may be coming to an end. Why can’t it be the Sharks who beat them in regulation, especially with Emery in net?

MLBSF1

Well Lisa,

I just don’t think the Sharks are playing well. So that’s why I’m not optimistic.

I have bad memories from the United Center from the playoffs a few years ago. But maybe we will win tonight. I hope so.

ppc

lol at the idea that burns isn’t a good skater. anyone who writes that is to be summarily dismissed.

also the heatley trade wasn’t just heatley for havlat. the cap space allowed paying logan couture more, so it’s heatlet for havlat + couture and we win that every day of the week.

Hockeynut

Heatley for Havlat + Couture.

Wow, even Fox News can’t spin the facts like that…impressive.

KL3478

Sharks will probably win simply for reasons of inevatibility. They won’t lose forever, and the Hawks long streak also will end eventually, so tonight might be the night. also, the Hawks looked a bit tired in OT the other night.

LineTwoRW

“…win simply for reasons of [inevitability].”

Now that is golden, haha! Way to keep it light in here!

Alex

“Sharks will probably win simply for reasons of inevatibility. They won’t lose forever, and the Hawks long streak also will end eventually, so tonight might be the night. also, the Hawks looked a bit tired in OT the other night.”

Agreed. Something will have to give tonight, not predicting the Sharks win but it’s more likely that we break our losing streak, IMO.

Hockeynut

To the poster who mentioned it, I’d rather have Mitchell than Galiardi. At least Mitchell sent the puck in the direction of the net once in a while.

Bill

#55 Burns is not a good skater. He got burned yet again and it was fortunate that they didn’t score on the breakaway.

The Heatley trade was for Havlat. Sharks already had cap room for Couture. Sharks would have been better off keeping Heatley. Havlat has had one full season in the past 10. He is injury prone and hasn’t had a decent scoring season since 2003. So what was DW smoking when he pulled the trigger on this one? Looking at 10 year old highlight film and got confused?

Doug Wilson needs to be fired. This is his team. He put all the pieces together and has to be held responsible for the decline of the Sharks goal production over the past 4 seasons.

Lisa

Sharks need to regroup and find their way. They are better than their last 7 games record shows.